Hematology

Two years ago, Shao, a mechanical engineer with a flair for biology, was working with embryonic stem cells, the kind derived from human embryos able to form any cell type. The work in Michigan is part of a larger boom in organoid research--scientists are using stem cells to create clumps of cells that increasingly resemble bits of brain, lungs, or intestine (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies: Brain Organoids"). Scientists have started seeking ways to coax stem cells to form more complicated, organized tissues, called organoids. Following guidelines promulgated last year by Kimmelman's international stem-cell society, Fu's team destroys the cells just five days after they're made.

Two years ago, Shao, a mechanical engineer with a flair for biology, was working with embryonic stem cells, the kind derived from human embryos able to form any cell type. The work in Michigan is part of a larger boom in organoid research--scientists are using stem cells to create clumps of cells that increasingly resemble bits of brain, lungs, or intestine (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies: Brain Organoids"). Scientists have started seeking ways to coax stem cells to form more complicated, organized tissues, called organoids. Following guidelines promulgated last year by Kimmelman's international stem-cell society, Fu's team destroys the cells just five days after they're made.

Innovation in this area is being helped by the UK National Health Service's (NHS) Electronic Prescription Service (EPS), which has been rolled out over the last few years. It enables doctors to send prescriptions direct to pharmacies electronically without any need for paper. Such efficiencies have saved the NHS £137m; doctors' practices £328m; pharmacies £59m; and patients £75m, between 2013 and 2016, NHS Digital says. So his company spent three-and-a-half years building a platform, PharmacyOS, to handle every aspect of the repeat prescription process: prescribing, dispensing, delivering, billing, handling insurance claims, as well as pill-taking monitoring.

Soft wearable robotic exosuits can help patients walk after strokes, a new study finds. However, while the rigid nature of most exoskeletons can help them provide large amounts of assistance for patients who could not otherwise walk, they may not be suitable for people who have some capacity to walk on their own, as they can restrict natural movement, Walsh says. "By providing a small amount of assistance, our soft exosuit could provide significant benefits for people who retain some ability to walk, such as most stroke survivors, and allow them to move more naturally than they could with a more rigid system," Walsh says. The scientists are now planning to see whether continued use of this soft exosuit can help stroke patients learn how to walk better without the device, Walsh says.

The research comes from the Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. The regathers behind the development are hopeful it will lead to better outcomes for patients undergoing rehabilitation following incidences like a stroke or a spinal cord injury or strokes. READ MORE: Mayo Clinic's new startup to tackle diseases using AI Recovery plans for spinal cord injuries and strokes typically require usually many hours of supported walking, using devices like treadmills, with the walking aid pre-programmed by a medic to provide a steady pace. The new development has been described in the journal Science Translational Medicine, with the research paper headed "A multidirectional gravity-assist algorithm that enhances locomotor control in patients with stroke or spinal cord injury."

Science Daily explores the issue in more depth (4 July 2017): "However, because the artificial intelligence system is a technique which analyses the embryo through mathematical variables, it offers low subjectivity and high repeatability, making embryo classification more consistent. "Nevertheless," said Professor Rocha, "the artificial intelligence system must be based on learning from a human being -- that is, the experienced embryologists who set the standards of assessment to train the system."" See also EurekAlert (4 July 2017): "The system utilizes a sophisticated architecture of multi-class deep neural networks (DNNs) and DNN ensembles trained on thousands of samples of carefully selected cells of multiple classes: embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, progenitor stem cells, adult stem cells and adult cells to recognize the class and embryonic state of the sample, achieving high accuracy in simulations. The sample sets were augmented with carefully selected and manually curated data from public repositories coming from multiple experiments and generated on different platforms.

The Allen Cell Explorer, produced by the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle, Washington, includes a growing library of more than 6,000 pictures of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) -- key components of which glow thanks to fluorescent markers that highlight specific genes. Rick Horwitz, director of the Allen Institute for Cell Science, says that the institute's images may hasten progress in stem cell research, cancer research and drug development by revealing unexpected aspects of cellular structure. The Allen Institute's visual emphasis on stem cells dovetails with a number of efforts to catalogue other aspects of cells. Aviv Regev, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is working on the Human Cell Atlas, says that the Allen Cell Explorer complements her project by focusing on the look of cellular features as opposed to how genes, RNA and proteins interact within the cell.

In one new study, researchers created a mix of different types of blood stem cells that produced different kinds of human blood cells when transfused into mice, The Independent reported. This is an important step toward making artificial human blood, as doctors believe that figuring out a way to turn stem cells into blood artificially will eventually lead to this breakthrough. For example, in a study published in March, scientists in England were able to produce about 50,000 red blood cells by coaxing stem cells into transforming into red blood cells. Another problem that stands in our way of successfully making limitless artificial blood is the risk of these new blood cells becoming cancerous, The Independent reported.

Academic institutions are also getting in on the ground floor of advanced pattern recognition. At Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, researchers are turning machine learning algorithms loose on pathology slides to predict relapse rates for acute myelogenous leukemia. In a small study published earlier this year, one algorithm was able to identify patients who would relapse with 100 percent accuracy.

Scientists hope to use the mini-brains to watch in real time the triggers for epilepsy, when brain cells become hyperactive, and autism, where they are thought to form bad connections. Human skin cells are transformed into pluripotent stem cells, capable of becoming any part of the body, using four genes in a petri dish. Dr Selina Wray, Alzheimer's Research UK senior research fellow at UCL Institute of Neurology, said: 'This technology will provide researchers with insights into brain development and disease which have not previously been possible.' Human skin cells are transformed into pluripotent stem cells, capable of becoming any part of the body, using four genes in a petri dish.